The Dictators were an American punk rock band formed in New York City in 1973. Critic John Dougan said that they were “one of the finest and most influential proto-punk bands to walk the earth.”
The band was formed in 1972 by Andy “Adny” Shernoff who was attending The State University of New York at New Paltz and Ross “The Boss” Friedman who was playing in the local band Total Crudd. Scott “Top Ten” Kempner was asked to join and the trio rented a house in Kerhonkson, NY where they lived and rehearsed with various drummers. The original recording line-up consisted of vocalist/bassist/songwriter Andy Shernoff, lead guitarist Ross Friedman (aka Ross Funicello), rhythm guitarist Scott Kempner, and drummer Stu Boy King. It was this line-up–along with roadie/occasional vocalist and “Secret Weapon” Handsome Dick Manitoba–which recorded the band’s 1975 debut album, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! for Epic Records, produced by Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman (best known for their work with Blue Öyster Cult). The album sold poorly at the time but is now considered to be the starting point for American punk rock . Entertainment Weekly wrote “Go Girl Crazy’s junk-generation culture and smart-aleck sensibility did provide an essential blueprint for ’70s punk. With its TV references and homely vocals, this ground-breaking and long-unavailable album continues to inspire underground groups everywhere.”
Frustrated by the lack of sales, the band broke up for a few months in late 1975, but reconvened in early 1976, with bassist Mark “The Animal” Mendoza replacing Shernoff and Ritchie Teeter replacing King. After a few months Shernoff was persuaded to return to the group as the group’s keyboardist. This line-up soon secured a contract with Asylum Records (at least partly due to the notoriety the group had developed following a well-publicized brawl between Manitoba and Wayne County) and released their second album, Manifest Destiny, in 1977. The album was produced by Pearlman and Krugman with songs written by Shernoff.
Early in 1978 Mendoza had left the band (he soon joined Twisted Sister), and Shernoff had returned to his original position on bass guitar. It was this line-up of Manitoba, Shernoff, Friedman, Kempner, and Teeter which recorded Bloodbrothers (yet again produced by Pearlman and Krugman with songs written by Shernoff). It was the first album to feature Manitoba as the group’s vocalist on all the songs, though Bruce Springsteen–a big fan of the group to this day–can be heard counting “1-2-1-2-3-4” during the album’s opening track, “Faster and Louder.” The album’s “Baby, Let’s Twist” was a minor hit on a number of East Coast radio stations, but the lack of mainstream success caused the band to split again the following year. Shortly before the split, drummer Mel Anderson had left Twisted Sister and joined The Dictators, replacing Teeter.
After the break-up, Manitoba drove a taxi cab, Shernoff worked as a record producer and songwriter and Friedman worked first with the French hard-rock band Shakin’ Street, then became a founding member of Manowar in 1982 (with whom he recorded the band’s first six albums, leaving the band after the 1988 album Kings of Metal), and producing the first demo for Anthrax.
The members of the band began reuniting occasionally and in 1981, ROIR released the cassette-only Fuck ‘Em If They Can’t Take a Joke produced by Andy Shernoff, which featured numbers from all three of the group’s studio albums, covers of the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On” and Mott the Hoople’s “Moon Upstairs,” plus two new Shernoff numbers: “Loyola” and “New York New York”.
Other than occasional reunion shows, little was heard from The Dictators during the next five years. However, in late 1986 Shernoff and Manitoba (along with guitarist Daniel Rey) formed Wild Kingdom, releasing a version of “New York New York” on the 1988 soundtrack to Mondo New York.
In 1990 MCA Records released the Wild Kingdom debut, …And You? written and produced by Andy Shernoff, though they were now billed as Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom to avoid a lawsuit from the TV show Wild Kingdom. By this time Rey had left the group and had been replaced by Friedman (the group was rounded out by drummer J.P. Patterson). …And You? – a brief 25 minutes in length – received excellent reviews, with Rolling Stone calling it “the first great punk rock album of the ’90s.”
The …And You? album cover was a source of some controversy, since it was lifted from a World War II Nazi recruiting poster. It was not the first time members of the band (most of whom were Jewish) had been associated with charges of this sort since Go Girl Crazy had featured the songs “Master Race Rock” and “Back to Africa.”
By the 1990s, much about the lives of the band’s members had changed markedly.
Shernoff recorded and toured with The Fleshtones in 1989 and 1990, wrote and recorded with The Ramones, became a successful record producer and worked as a sommelier. Manitoba opened an East-Village bar called Manitoba’s in 1999. Kempner had developed a certain degree of respect from roots-rock audiences due to his 1980s work with The Del-Lords. In 1992 he released his highly acclaimed solo album Tenement Angels and joined The Brandos in 1993. Friedman’s work with Manowar and Brain Surgeons had given him a certain cachet with heavy metal audiences.
However, the group – first with Frank Funaro on drums, then again with Patterson – began recording a new Dictators album written and produced by Andy Shernoff in the late 1990s, which was eventually released as D.F.F.D. in 2001. Allmusic called the album a “non-stop barrage of spitfire precision rock. The material is, unbelievably, their best and most consistent ever for an album”.
The Dictators continued to perform to a devoted audience releasing a live album, Viva Dictators in 2005, produced by Shernoff. In 2007, they compiled an album of demos, rarities, and unreleased songs which were recorded at various times over their thirty-plus year career called “Every Day Is Saturday” on Norton Records. The title was a line in the song “Weekend” from the band’s first album The Dictators Go Girl Crazy.
Shernoff formed The Master Plan releasing “Colossus Of Destiny” on Alive-Total Energy Records in 2003 and “Maximum Respect” on Green Mist Records in 2011.
Manitoba sang with the surviving members of the MC5 and worked as a DJ in Little Steven’s Underground Garage on Sirius XM Radio, till he was fired, then re-hired to work on Steven’s station, which did not work out, January, 2018.
In October 2006, the band (Manitoba, Shernoff, Friedman, Patterson, Kempner) headlined the second and third to last shows ever at the legendary NYC club CBGB. The 2nd to last show featured Blondie on the bill as well, and during the Dictators final song on the CBGB stage, they were joined by Tommy Ramone, the last surviving original member of The Ramones for a rendition of the Ramones song “Blitzkrieg Bop”.
In November 2007, Manitoba, along with author Amy Wallace, put out The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists on BackBeat Books, a small book company owned by Hal Leonard Publishing.
Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom reunited in May 2008 to play at the Joey Ramone Birthday Bash at The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza, with a lineup featuring Manitoba, Shernoff, Friedman & Patterson.
In July 2008, Kempner released his well-received second solo album Saving Grace . In October 2008, The Dictators reunited for a series of four concerts in Spain.
Ross The Boss released his debut solo album, New Metal Leader, in August 2008. He and his band have released their second album Hailstorm in 2010.
Patterson released his second album, entitled The LP Is Dead, in November 2009 via No Fun Records.
Kempner and the rest of The Del-Lords re-united in early 2010 for a successful tour of Spain. They are currently working on an album of all new material. Kempner’s first solo album, Tenement Angels, was released on March 1, 2011 on GB Music. The release is on CD (remastered with a bonus track) and on vinyl. The LP is a limited edition on 500, and comes with a digital download and a hand signed poster by Kempner.
Shernoff released his first solo EP “Don’t Fade Away” on Yazoo Squelch Records in 2012. Critic Mark Deming wrote “the man is still writing excellent songs and singing them straight from the heart, which is what his best work has always been about, and it’s great news that well over three decades into his career, he’s still got fresh and worthwhile things to say.”[9] He released his second EP “On The First Day, Man Created God” in 2013 again on Yazoo Squelch records. In August 2015 he released a video collaboration with Lydia Lunch for the song “A Good Night To Say Goodbye”. Another video to celebrate Joey Ramone’s 65th birthday was released on May 15, 2016.
Former member Richard Teeter, who played drums for The Dictators between 1976 and 1979, died on April 10, 2012, due to complications from esophageal cancer. He was 61.
In November 2015, Go Girl Crazy! received an expanded and remastered CD reissue, featuring several unreleased selections and remixes of three tunes by Andrew W.K.
On May 1, 2018, the Dictators original drummer, Stuart ‘Stu Boy’ King, died from pancreatic cancer.
On May 28, 2020, Andy Shernoff announced that the Dictators were reforming to record some new material and possibly play live, with a line-up comprised by Shernoff on bass and vocals, Ross The Boss and Kempner on guitars and Albert Bouchard (formerly of Blue Oyster Cult) on drums.
Go Girl Crazy! is the debut album by American punk rock band The Dictators. It was released on March 1975 and is considered one of the first examples of punk rock.
Go Girl Crazy! has been well-received critically and is considered a precursor to punk rock. In its retrospective review, AllMusic notes that while the album was confusing to audiences at the time of its release, it became inspirational for dozens of groups to follow.[4] Trouser Press enthused that the band deserves “scads of credit” for “blazing a long trail, melding the essentials of junk culture… with loud/hard/fast rock’n’roll and thus creating an archetype”.[10] According to a 2001 article in The Village Voice, the album’s “blueprint for bad taste, humor, and defiance” has been replicated in the work of such bands as the Ramones and Beastie Boys.
Trouser Press lauded the album as a “wickedly funny, brilliantly played and hopelessly naïve masterpiece of self-indulgent smartass rock’n’roll”. Entertainment Weekly wrote: “Go Girl Crazy’s junk-generation culture and smart-aleck sensibility did provide an essential blueprint for ’70s punk. With its TV references and homely vocals, this ground-breaking and long-unavailable album continues to inspire underground groups everywhere.” Canadian journalist Martin Popoff enjoyed the album and considered the Dictators “more obviously comedians than musicians”, “with a sense of self-deprecating humor poking sticks at the seriousness of heavy metal”.
In addition to musicians, the album was also one of two factors influencing the creation of Punk magazine by John Holmstrom and music journalist Legs McNeil. In Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, McNeil said that the album so resonated with him and his friends that they started the magazine strictly so they could “hang out with the Dictators”. (wikipedia)
In 1975, when proto-punk and heavy metal were two opposing camps who barely acknowledged each other’s existence, The Dictators’ first album, Go Girl Crazy!, found New York’s finest trying to bring both sides together in a brave, prescient, and (at least at the time) futile gesture. The band’s “smart guys who like dumb stuff” humor, junk-culture reference points, and ’60s cheeze rock covers (“California Sun” and “I Got You Babe” on one album) would seem tailor made for the crowd at CBGB digging the Ramones and the Dead Boys, but their sludgy and stripped down hard rock (and Ross “The Boss” Funichello’s neo-metal guitar solos) were something else altogether. And at a time when the arena rock audience had not yet embraced the less-than-subtle humor and theatrics of Sparks or Cheap Trick, the Dictators’ ahead-of-their-time enthusiasm for wrestling, White Castle hamburgers, and television confused more kids than it converted.
Heard today, the album is a hoot and a half; if the tempos could often stand to be a bit livelier, Adny Shernoff’s songs are still great (especially the absurdly anthemic “Two Tub Man,” “I Live for Cars and Girls,” and “Weekend”), the jokes still register (while the contemporary Political Correctness brigade might blanch at “Back to Africa” or “Master Race Rock,” they’re merely absurd in the Mad Magazine tradition), and “secret weapon” Handsome Dick Manitoba was truly a find. Dozens of groups borrowed wholesale from Go Girl Crazy! later on down the line, but the original is still the greatest … and the funniest. (by Mark Deming)
A songs like “The Next Big Thing” or “Weekend” stands the test of time … Listen and enjoy the power of this group !
Personnel:
Ross “The Boss” Funichello (lead guitar, background vocals)
Scott Kempner (guitar)
Stu Boy King (drums, percussion)
Andy Shernoff (vocals, bass)
+
Handsome Dick Manitoba (vocals)
Allan Lanier (credited as Alan Glover) (keyboards on 05. + 09.)
Tracklist:
01. The Next Big Thing (Shernoff) 4.23
02. I Got You Babe (Bono) 4.04
03. Back To Africa (Shernoff) 3.34
04. Master Race Rock (Shernoff) 4.15
05. Teengenerate (Shernoff) 3.27
06. California Sun (Glover/Levy) 3.04
07. Two Tub Man (Shernoff) 4.09
08. Weekend (Shernoff) 4.02
09. (I Live For) Cars And Girls (Shernoff) 3.56
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’
The year was 1973 and the music business needed a good kick in the ass. The innovations that marked the 1960’s were a dusty memory.
Jimi, Jim and Janis were dead. The Beatles had broken up and the Rolling Stones string of Jimmy Miller produced masterpieces had ended. The only Stones song to hit the top 10 that year was ‘Angie’… a ballad! Things were heading in a bad direction. The music business had become a vast wasteland of sensitive, hippie singer-songwriters, pompous technical virtuosity and insipid, inane pop. It was starting to get very mellow…. and go very, very wrong.
Let me set the scene: the top selling record of 1973 was “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando and Dawn, while the second best seller was “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce. The number one selling album was “The World is a Ghetto” by War followed by Seals and Croft’s “Summer Breeze”. The anti-social rebelliousness that had defined rock and roll through the 60’s was in retreat.
There were glimmerings of hope in England – where glam rock ruled the charts with dynamic, three minute, hook filled songs sung by pretty boys in makeup, satin and high heels. Unfortunately, piquing sexual mores didn’t play well in America. The definitive glam rock album, David Bowie’s ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ reached number 5 on the UK charts but stalled at 75 in America. As a matter of fact, many of the UK’s biggest chart success in 1973 never even saw the light of day in the States. To get my UK rock and roll fix, I tuned in Scott Muni’s “Things From England” every Friday afternoon on WNEW-FM. On Saturday, I would take the subway down to Bleecker Bob’s in the “Village”, buy the records, then head over to the newsstand on 6th Ave and pick up 3 week old copies of the New Musical Express and Melody Maker to keep track of the sensational musical adventures of Slade, Mott The Hoople, Wizzard, Suzi Quatro and Roxy Music.
Meanwhile, New York was fraying at the edges. The middle class was evacuating the city for safer options in the suburbs. This meant cheap rents for artists and musicians who were willing to put up with the dirt, drugs and crime of a desolate downtown. The Mercer Arts Center, a performance space on the border between Greenwich Village and the recently designated Soho, became a magnet for the arts and home for The New York Dolls.
The Dolls had developed a devoted following by capturing the glammy, androgynous excitement that was developing in England. They eschewed technique for feel and sincerity for attitude – capturing the original spirit of rock and roll that had disappeared from the Billboard charts. Performing in front of a few hundred people they looked and acted like rock stars, but I was impressed by how they blatantly let their influences show. Finally a band that was listening to the same albums as I was. As the saying goes: “Don’t judge someone by the color of their skin, judge them by the quality of their record collection!” The Dolls also galvanized something special in me and dozens of other music fanatics in their audience. Something life changing. Maybe, just maybe, I could do what they were doing – get some friends together and start a band.
At the time, I was attending college. Well, attending might be the wrong word. I was registered in a college – but attending the local bars. I was more involved with publishing my satirical fanzine ‘Teenage Wasteland Gazette’ and doing occasional reviews and articles for rock magazines like Creem. One day I ran into Ross ‘the Boss’ Friedman who confidentially told me he was considering quitting his current band (called Total Crudd) and getting something new started. I quickly volunteered my services on bass – an instrument I didn’t even own at the time. As the conversation continued, Scott ‘Top Ten’ Kempner’s name came up. Scott was the only guy we knew who liked The Stooges and also played guitar. You see, in those days if you met somebody who liked the Stooges, you immediately bonded. We called Top Ten and he quickly dropped out of the college he wasn’t attending, even faster than I did. Our mutual friend Richard Blum, soon to be Handsome Dick Manitoba, became our roadie and eventually joined us onstage. In the spirit of Spinal Tap, the drummers came and went until we settled on a friend of a friend, Stu-Boy King.
There were certain assumptions you could make about a rock and roll fan in 1973: they were under 30 years old, they had long hair, they did drugs and they were against the war in Vietnam. Dropping out of college to play the ‘devil’s music’ was our parent’s nightmare – even though it was our saving grace and the light at the end of the tunnel for our lives. They had legitimate concerns as rock and roll wasn’t exactly a smart career choice in those days. There were no universities issuing music business degrees and no Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awards dinners as pop groups had a notoriously short shelf life. As far as they were concerned, it was a craze that would eventually fade away to be replaced by the next teenybopper fad. Finish college and develop a back-up plan they pleaded – and there was good reason to feel that way.
If rock and roll began in 1955, the year Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around The Clock’ was released, then it was only 18 years old in 1973 … and rock and roll, like us, was still a fumbling teenager.
The future was unwritten.
So, we were a band, though to be honest, Ross was the only one of us who had any musical skills or experience. Scott, Richard and I had never been in a band before. We didn’t even qualify as amateurs. In retrospect, that was one of our assets, as we had no road map or pre-conceived notions. It was all up in the air. We were sarcastic, wise-guy New Yorkers, who liked Pro Wrestling, White Castle, drinking beer and making fun of anything and everything. The trick was to turn those subjects into songs.
For inspiration I turned to Brian Wilson and Ray Davies. I always admired both for the idiosyncratic worlds their songs created. Brian depicted Southern California as a teenage paradise of cars, girls, surfing, and beer. While Ray Davies’ vignettes of English life seemed romantic and exotic to a kid who didn’t own a passport. I hoped that one day, I too would gaze on a Waterloo sunset, just like Terry and Julie. I yearned to do what Brian and Ray did – write songs about my world, in my own irreverent way and to communicate what it was like to grow up carefree and sarcastic in a New York City borough. I wanted to speak my own personal truth, just like my favorite songwriters did.
So, I wrote the very first song of my life: ‘Two Tub Man.” Combining Who-style power chords, an aggressive tempo, facetious lyrics and obscure pop culture references – I found my template. Every line dripped with attitude and sarcasm because sincerity and earnestness seemed so … Laurel Canyon. I sought out other provocative titles that drew you in and then led you off in completely different direction. So ‘Back to Africa’ wasn’t a racist rant, but rather, a love song to a black girl. ‘Teengenerate’ was a portrait inspired by Manitoba – who actually did eat eggs all day long. Some people took offense at the title of ‘Master Race Rock’, though a cursory listen revealed it as a manifesto for the Dictators lifestyle. Teenagers were the master race!
The goal was to create a disruption, shock, offend, get a rise out of people. We presaged political correctness as well as punk rock. The last tune I wrote for the album ‘The Next Big Thing’ was a song about ambition (though I couldn’t resist outing us as Jews.) ‘Weekend’ might have been the worst offender. A sweet pop melody disguised a cartoon celebration of drugs, violence, bodily fluids and anti-social behavior. At least nobody ever called me out for nicking the guitar riff from Buddy Holly’s ‘Heartbeat’ – amateurs steal, professionals borrow.
Musically, our influences were easy to identify. Our turntables were dominated by The Who, Alice Cooper, Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets, Raw Power and the second MC5 album, Back in The USA. Detroit, the last bastion of real rock and roll, was our cornerstone. No discussion of the band’s influences could be complete without acknowledging the immense impact Abbott and Costello and Andy Kaufman had on us. We obsessed over their surreal comedy – dissecting every detail which helped us craft the inside humor that defines the ‘Girl Crazy’ record. As far as we were concerned: the more tongue in cheek, the better. Our managers and producers Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman not only let us follow our peculiar, non-commercial muse, they actually encouraged it. It was Murray who surreptitiously recorded Manitoba’s rants in the studio, then inserted them between the songs. He also had the vision of making the album cover an homage to a pro wrestling magazine. I am still baffled that Epic records let us get away with everything.
We had one recurring problem, finding venues to perform. There was no place to play. The Mercer Arts Center had literally collapsed, CBGB’s was just opening and Max’s Kansas City existed as a venue for touring musicians and record company showcases. Sure, there were numerous rock clubs in the suburbs but they were only interested in cover bands. People didn’t care about original tunes, they wanted to hear the hits. Sandy and Murray also managed the Blue Öyster Cult, so they had connections to get us opening slots out of town. We would travel hours to play the most inappropriate shows. The Dictators opening for Rush or Billy Preston or calypso singer Exuma! The mind boggles. Needless to say they were all disasters. When The Coventry opened on Queens Boulevard to serve the burgeoning New York glam-rock scene, we finally had a semi-regular gig in front of a receptive audience. Supposedly ‘mob run’- the club was also home to The New York Dolls, KISS and a band called Sniper that featured a nerdy singer named Jeff Starship (soon to be rechristened Joey Ramone).
They say you need to put in 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in a field. We were woefully short. The Beatles performed 8 hours a night 7 days a week in Hamburg, We didn’t do 8 hours in a month… or 2 months…or a year!! I’m going to guess that we only did 20 shows before we made ‘Go Girl Crazy’. It didn’t matter – there was no audience for what we were doing anyway. We learned to entertain ourselves onstage by being loose and jokey. Unfortunately, rock was serious business and mocking its pretensions with bratty adolescent humor wasn’t always appreciated.
We were a band out of time.
In August of 1974 we entered Columbia Studios to record ‘The Dictators Go Girl Crazy.’ Coincidentally, the Ramones played their first show at CBGB’s the very same month. Evidently we weren’t the only ones feeling the vacuum in rock and roll. The punk revolution was inevitable, for every action there is a reaction. I assert that punk is at the core and a necessary component of every great rock and roll artist. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Beatles and The Stones all thumbed their noses at society and did things their own way, without apology. Rebellion and insolence holds a sacred place in the hearts of rock and rollers. Sometimes you have to look back before you move ahead. We tried to be part of the continuum even though we never reached the household name status of our more successful friends and contemporaries. The Ramones and The Sex Pistols defined the sound of punk. We helped define the attitude.
Enjoy this record in the spirit in which it was recorded.
Andy Shernoff, October 2015
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